A place to run away to, when things got so chaotic in life that silence was required and a cigarette needed just to clam the nerves. It helped of course that not many children dared to venture this way because of all the rumors that circulated around the old shack. Of course Theodore didn't see what they were all scared of, ok perhaps slighlty but he wasn't exactly going to admit to it, when the Hogwarts castle was full of ghosts and even an annoying poltergeist and they didn't run in the opposite direction of it. So what if it creaked and moaned and people swore they could hear screaming from inside. It all had to do with power of thought, and it wasn't as if he was about to go further than the gate anyway.

Blowing out another line of smoke he looked at the area surrounding the Shrieking Shack. If any of this property belonged to him, the people who were supposed to maintain it would all of been fired by now, or at least tortured until the understood the meaning of cleanliness. He was just thinking about somebody squirming for forgiveness at his feet when he heard the cracking of leaves and twigs not a few feet away. Theodore hardly expected the likes of any of the children of Hogwarts to make their way here so he assumed that it had to be a Professor. He would have questioned that type of thought in the previous years, but the fact that most of the Professors this year were Death Eaters, he thought it rather logical. They most probably required a place were they were certain no one would overhear them, and what better place than here? Quickly he stubbed the cigarette against the tree he leaned against and threw it as far away from him as it would go. He would merely let them know he was here and then walk away. He was certain they wouldn't attack a fellow Death Eaters child. At least he hoped they wouldn't.

Pulling his cloak around him he made his way out of the throng of trees he had hidden himself in and made his way to the direction he had heard the noise coming from. He didn't hold his wand. A dumb move in retrospect, since he wasn't really certain who it was, but if it were Death Eaters. They wouldn't act kindly toward someone who held a wand against them. He was just about to be in their line of sight when he heard a voice speak and he stopped. He was certain he knew that voice. Then finally it clicked and the tightness his throat eased as he placed the voice as an old childhood friend, who was now a mere acquaintance to him. He stepped forward more purposefully now and with the grace that was known of a Nott and turned until he found her figured sitting on the stump.

"Talking to oneself is a clear sign of insanity."

Theodore wished momentarily that he hadn't stepped to far out of the covering of the trees. If he hadn't he could of at least leaned against one of the tree trunk of the trees at this very moment for better effect. Yet, he wasn't willing to walk backward or look backward, because he wasn't willing to look like he hadn't thought his steps through. As if perhaps she had caught him off guard like she actually did. Life was all about perception, and the perception around Theodore Nott was that he didn't make mistakes. He preferred to keep that perception just the way it was.

Once she opened her mouth to greet him and then reply to his comment he couldn't understand why he couldn't place her voice faster. She had an unmistakable voice. That Southern accent of hers was not entire lost after all the years she had been in England, since she had been in America longer, and there weren't that many kids in Hogwarts that he knew of that originated from America. Theodore blamed it on the fact he hadn't had a conversation with her in such a long time. A passing hello didn't exactly pass for conversation and that was all they seemed to share lately. Time had changed and it seemed that they had changed along with it. It wasn't exactly like he had willingly made friends with her during his younger years anyhow. Father had said he was to be well-mannered and kind and in that time that was construed as a friendship. Her tales of America had enthralled him at a time, but that time seemed so far gone. As it stood at the moment he didn't exactly have that many friends anyhow. Those that one would really call a friend and not just some person that he had grown accustomed to over the years he had been around them in Hogwarts, since most, if not all existed with in the Slytherin house. He decided to leave that thought for another day. Had he not come here to get away, and now ere he was. His mind running off like it so often did.

"Perhaps there is the question," he replied ignoring the fact that she had pointed out in her greeting that he had forgotten to do so and stepped to ward her until he could lean against a tree that was not but five feet away from the stump that she now occupied. "Why would one, such as yourself, come here alone with the knowledge in hand that there would be no one with whom you could have a conversation with?" He finally finished the question resting his arm against the trunk of the tree and his body edging away from it.